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How to read your Google Analytics dashboard

This guide explains how to navigate your Google Analytics 4 (GA4) dashboard and understand the key reports you'll use most often.

What Is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool from Google that tracks who visits your website, how they found it, and what they do once they arrive. Refuel sets up and configures Google Analytics 4 (GA4) on your website as part of your onboarding. You can access your own data at any time through analytics.google.com.

Accessing Your Dashboard

  1. Go to analytics.google.com.
  2. Sign in with the Google account that has been granted access to your property (the GA4 account linked to your website).
  3. If you have multiple properties, select the correct one from the property selector in the top-left corner.

Note: If you can't see your property or get an access error, you may need to be granted access. See Granting access to Google Analytics.

The Home Screen

When you first log in, GA4 shows a Home overview with:

  • Users and new users over the last 7 days (or your selected date range).
  • Average engagement time — how long users actively interacted with your site.
  • Total revenue (if e-commerce tracking is set up).
  • A real-time card showing how many users are on your site right now.

This page is a quick health check. For deeper analysis, use the reports on the left sidebar.

Key Reports

Reports > Acquisition > Traffic Acquisition

This report shows how people found your website. Traffic is broken into channels:

  • Organic Search — found you through Google, Bing, or another search engine.
  • Paid Search — clicked a paid search ad (e.g. Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising).
  • Direct — typed your URL or used a bookmark.
  • Referral — clicked a link from another website.
  • Social — came from Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.
  • Email — clicked a link in an email.

Use this to understand which channels are driving the most visits and the highest quality traffic.

Also pay attention to the Engagement rate column — this GA4 metric shows the percentage of sessions where users actively interacted with your site, and replaces the older bounce rate metric from Universal Analytics.

Reports > Engagement > Pages and Screens

This report shows which pages people visit most and how they engage with them. Look at:

  • Views — total pageviews for each page.
  • Users — how many unique visitors saw the page.
  • Average engagement time per session — how long people spend actively viewing the page.

This helps you identify your most popular content and pages that may need improvement.

Reports > Engagement > Events

GA4 tracks user interactions as events. Default events include page views, scrolls, clicks, and file downloads. If Refuel has set up custom events (such as form submissions or button clicks), you'll see them here too.

Reports > Retention

This report shows how often users return to your site after their first visit. A healthy return rate (generally 20–30%+ for content-driven sites) suggests strong content or brand loyalty. If your return rate is low, consider whether your content gives visitors a reason to come back.

Changing the Date Range

By default, GA4 reports display the last 28 days of data. To change this:

  1. Click the date range in the top-right corner of any report.
  2. Select a preset range (Last 7 days, Last 30 days, etc.) or set custom dates.
  3. Toggle Compare to see a comparison with a previous period.

Comparing to the same period last year is especially useful if your business is seasonal.

Common Questions

What's the difference between "users" and "sessions"? A user is a unique individual tracked by Google Analytics. A session is a single visit to your site. If the same person visits three times in a week, that counts as 1 user and 3 sessions.

What does "not set" mean? You may see "(not set)" in some reports. This usually means Google couldn't determine the value for that dimension — for example, a traffic source that wasn't tagged properly. It's normal to see small amounts of this.

Why does my data look different from Refuel's report?

Refuel's monthly reports may use different date ranges, filters, or attribution settings. Note also that GA4 can take 24–48 hours to fully process data, so very recent figures may shift slightly. If you notice a significant discrepancy, contact your Refuel team and we'll walk you through the difference.

Refuel's monthly reports may use different date ranges, filters, or attribution settings. If you notice a significant difference, let your Refuel team know and we'll explain.

Need Help?

If you have questions about navigating Google Analytics, reach out to your Refuel contact or lodge a support ticket.